Students are pouring (or being pushed) into further
and higher education in ever greater numbers – many
of them from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds. This is
government-speak for saying that they might not be
able to write properly.

So they have to be taught when they get there. This
leaves subject tutors with an extra job to do.

This book is designed to help those tutors. It’s
written by a group of Open University teachers and
sets out a range of strategies for improving
students’ writing skills.

It’s particularly good in the sections on assessment
and feedback, and also includes tips for what you’ll
need for working on line. Recommended.

But even this is only for the static display
of information. Ben Fry’s new book is based on the
same principles, but he shows how data can be shown
dynamically.

He displays data as bar charts, tree maps, and
scatter diagrams – but he adds the f.r.e.e Java
software he has developed. This allows you to
update, re-arrange, and present your data in
exciting new formats. See further details at –

I’ve created a portrait gallery of the main
characters in the Bloomsbury Group – with links
to potted biographies. So if you want to see what
the unlikely lovers Bertrand Russell (‘victim of
halitosis’) and Ottoline Morrell (two baths a year)
looked like, go to –

Most people know who Samuel Beckett is, but
know very little about his life. This isn’t
surprising, because he was a rather private
person. He even sent his publisher to collect
his Nobel Prize.

But this short biography opened my eyes to
what was a far from straightforward man.

He came from a well-to-do background, was a
very talented academic, lived a rather bohemian
existence, had little success for many years,
and had multiple relationships with women,
all of which required him to ‘timetable’
his private life.

Lots of rarely seen photographs here, as well
as shots of his theatrical productions.